Although I may be biased as a former CPer, I do have seem to have had some bad experiences with AC and have complained about them. So I think that it's only appropriate to acknowledge a positive experience. I went to Arizona with my wife and daughter last week on a long-planned trip on L tickets. As I mentioned elswhere, I had no difficulty in upgrading all of us at YXU on CP stickers. That was pleasant but not out of the ordinary. On the return I was only able to upgrade one of us, and my wife sat up front. We were returning on Sunday, following the freezing rain and high winds in Toronto, and the inbound flight was late. PHX was a zoo, with the most crowded RCC lounge I have ever been in. When we pushed back from the ramp about an hour or so late, we got about 10 metres and stopped. The Captain came on and reported that the right engine wouldn't start and we had to go back to the ramp. For the next hour and a half or so while they were trying to fix it, we gotquite detailed updates and apologies from the flight deck every few minutes, and when we finally under way, the crew were extremely solicitous, gave complimentary bar service in Y, and were generally very helpful. Most of my previous experiences like this with AC have been stony silence from the flight deck and a crabby flight crew whose shift just got a little bit longer. I hope that this is a sign of things to come.

Well, that's nice to hear. It's odd that I had the exact opposite experience on Sunday. I was sitting on the plane waiting for push back in YYZ bound for MIA. Departure time passed. No push back, no announcement. There wasn't a word until 25 minutes after departure time. The delay was because we were on a 763 that had been bound for Tel Aviv the previous night. That flight had been cancelled. They had to remove the excess fuel. Is the simple courtesy of an announcement at/before dept time too much to expect?

I guess this is just another illustration of the one quality AC seems to really pride themselves on: Inconsistency

Well, you were very lucky because L is not an upgradable fare any longer. It hasn't been since the end of last year, and then only with the old Grey and Red CP stickers which are also no longer accepted. How did you ever talk the agent into it, and was this at the gate or through an advance call to res?

IMO agents actually have a great deal of discretion with these things, depending on if they have an anal supervisor. They have to feel confident that they have the support of their colleagues when they do something nice as a one-off for a passenger, as opposed to the fear of being confronted in a negative way about it by peers and superiors.

I had something nice happen from AC Customer Solutions: a recon I have actually only ever written one letter of complaint to AC, and they replied with an MCO and upgrades enclosed.

You mean all of your well developed opinion has only produced one letter of complaint?!? Time to spend more time with your word processor

AC*SE -> you couldn't have said it better!!!

I am in shock!

Dorian

Yeah, but IMO one must pick their battles. It is like the 'boy who cried "wolf"' mentality. I figure, the small things are annoying, but if one were to complain about all of them, they would not be taken seriously when they really get f****d over by an AC agent, as was the subject of my letter. So I tolerate the incidents of crap service and terrible food, and wait for something real bad to happen before putting pen to paper.

Why don't you try waiting for something good to happen instead? You might be pleasantly surprised.

People generally find what it is that they are looking for - and miss what they are not looking for.

Well said, Max Power. Lately, my experiences with AC have been positive and any problems have been of my own making. I'm sure that there are a lot more staff like A Flygirl and Secret Agent around than the demons we all run into occasionally, so it's time to look on the bright side. We may disagree with some of AC's policies, but there's not much we can do there.

I recently had a "lady in black", go out of her way for me to try and upgrade more than one companion (two of my children) YYZ-LHR.

As it turned out she was unsucessful, but she really tried.

On the other hand, In early January, I met a neighbor's son at check in for ZRH. He was on a Q fare, and I politely asked for upgrade him with CDN Plus (I had all the colours remaining). While the gate agent thought about it, a "lady in black" came charging up to start yelling about attempting to illegally upgrade, and I should know the rules, and etc.(like anyone could stay on top of the CP upgrade rules long enough before they changed again) The poor youngster thought she was going to pull him off the flight. Very unecessary and very embarrasing.

Moral: Agents should need a majority vote of FF's before they get to wear "Black"

[This message has been edited by GreyOwl (edited 03-05-2001).]

Is that CP black uniform or AC? As far as I know only people that now wear black are Concierge and VIP reps, but some "regular" CPers had the new black uniform that was going to replace the blue CP threads

I have never had a negative experience with any of the "ladies in black". They have always been extremely helpful and professional, the very best of ACs front line staff

[This message has been edited by Fly Boy (edited 03-05-2001).]

It was AC black that she wore that day.

Based on my limitted experience, I agree......99% of the time.

This particular person was the in charge of the flight- rare probably for a concierge.

Perhaps Secret Agent can shed some light on whether only concieges wear black jackets?

Greyowl...

AC Conceirges wear black, therefore you did not encounter on at ZRH as none exist at that station (really). Maybe one of the reg. agents was cold and put on a sweater of their own?

You can virtually never get anything out of ZRH AC staff...except the rules. Gosh...I was doing ZRH-YYZ weekly for most of 2000...once they went outta their way...when I phoned from the highway and begged and pleaded for them to leave my ticket at the 1st class counter as they were closing the ticket counter to go board my flight. It was like pulling teeth...and they know me by name and sight and I even give them gifts!

Dorian

Hello Dorian:

I wasn't clear enough. I enountered the nasty lady in black at check in for YYZ-ZRH.
She resides right here in the "office" opposite exec. check in at T1.

I am still unclear why she was wearing a black jacket, because she didn't seem to be a VIP or a concierge. She definitely was "in charge" because, when the VIP who wanted to help caught the look in her eyes, her knees started to buckle.

Oh well, I did mean to accentuate the positive that these good people provide most of the time.

Why Dorian, bribery should get you anywhere.

Thank-you Academic for sharing this incident. This is a prime example of company policy in action. A number of times I have noticed that you sauvy travellers seem to interpret one, shall we say less than stellar, employee's lack of initiative as a reflection of AC's service policy (or lack of) in general.

AC, as did CP, constantly drill into flight deck crew and Incharges the importance of making announcements such as these but with some employees you just can't force their mouths open no matter how often this directive is drilled into their heads accompanied by the importance of doing so.

I recall one Captain who was hauled into the office a while ago and berated because he never made any announcements and complaints had been received about it. On his next flight, he picked up the mic, said a few words, and declared that this represented a 100% improvement. He has not made a PA since then to my knowledge. What a card.

My strategy is to check with the Captain at departure time to ask him/her, will you make an announcement or should I, so that at least someone keeps our captive audience updated during a delay. And you are right Academic; it doesn't relieve your frustration with the situation if this is done but it goes a long way to curtail the anger that can build up collectively in the cabin when, through our silence, you are made to feel inconsequential. I will also make an announcement for the sake of customers making connecting flights advising people that once we are airborne, I will attempt to get what information I can on their flight status. I then tour the cabin so that people can toss questions at me or ask for further clarification of the situation. Sometimes they don't understand the aviation jargon or the acronyms thrown at them by the pilots. Like, how many people know what an APU is or even recognise ATC? Sometimes they just need the assurance that the a/c will be safe once the repair is conducted. Sometimes the same-day business traveller just wants to know if they should make a call between aborting their trip or sticking it out. I have found that this "tour of duty" goes a long way is easing tensions.

I worked a LGA-YYZ flight where our ramp to ramp time was 4:17. It was what we call a creeping delay. It started as a mechanical but by the time that problem was corrected, bad weather moved in and to top things off, when we finally hit the skies, we had to circle for 45 min. over YYZ. Throughout this episode, announcements were made regularily with some tasteful humour thrown in. The greet agent in YYZ expressed her amazement after deplaning that so many passengers warmly and genuinely thanked us as they were leaving and nobody stormed off looking like they were ready to rip someone's head off. My crew were proud of it.

Please do not tag one person's or a collective crew's behaviour (when they lack communative skills) as generally accepted or condoned by AC or it's staff as a whole. Unfortunately, because we are front line employees, a conception is formed from these negative one-on-one experiences that reflect poorly on the company in general. I'll give AC credit; they are trying to reform the unbelievers.

You can lead a horse to water...